The Magic Of The Illusionist

Ever been mesmerized by a magician? I have.

If you ever went for a magic show at the local fair as a kid, and was shocked to see a woman being "cut" in half using a saw and then sighed in relief when she was "joined" again and brought back to life, or was amazed by the guy who got into that empty trunk and just vanished, only to re-emerge from the crowd, am sure you know what am talking about.

Magic is every man’s fantasy. It could be just to amuse people or, for those who don’t believe it’s just an illusion, to make their every wish come true. Who wouldn’t love to make the nasty, useless politicians just vanish with the snap the fingers? Ok, that’s just my wish, ‘coz I just hate them. My point is, everyone has some wish they really wish they could make come true, by magic.

But this post is not about those wishes and how to make them come true. This is about a guy, a cool dude… named David Copperfield. Oh no, not the David who had a tragic and dramatic childhood, fell in love with Emily and Dora and finally married Agnes, as in the Charles Dickens classic. Am talking of that David Copperfield who can make that pesky neighbor of yours vanish in the blink of an eye. The illusionist! The magician!

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Both the audiences and the critics alike have hailed David Copperfield as the greatest illusionist of our time. And I agree. This guy is amazing. He has vanished the Statue of Liberty, walked through the Great Wall of China, levitated himself from the Grand Canyon and made audience members disappear and reappear in places they never ever expected. They say he became the first person to escape from Alcatraz, something that Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly attempted but never succeeded.

I had a VHS tape of his show where he made an airplane surrounded by a ring of spectators, disappear. But the main number was making the Statue of Liberty disappear from the eyes of hundreds of people watching it, from the multiple cameras taking continuous snaps of beautiful women with the Statue in the background from different angles , and the news and TV crews flying in the helicopters around the statue. And an estimated home TV audience of 50 million watched this live. It was one breath taking moment, even on a video.

Now isn’t that amazing? A guy whose résumé lists Statue of Liberty, an airplane, a 70 ton Orient Express train car, apart from the many people and himself as the “things” he’s vanished; and escaping from the Alcatraz prison, from imploding buildings, and a plunge over the Niagara falls, unhurt, as some of his best adventures. How cool is that!

I grew out of the fantasies of being a magician as a kid itself. After watching a handful of guys doing the same stuff… cutting and stitching, floating babes and the here’s the card you picked numbers, I was bored. But later, when I watched this guy in action, I was like…WOW! Magic and illusion can be this exciting? I’ve totally lost interest in those stupid card tricks and the across-the-table magic doesn’t excite me at all. But David Copperfield's tricks? They are different, and he never stopped making the world gasp.

If you never saw this guy in action, try to. Videos are good enough. And to give you a gist, here’s a clip from 15 years of his amazing shows.

Remember. Magic... is just an illusion!